Speaker for the Painting
by JayneForester
Summary: After the war a painter is called in to complete a portrait of Severus Snape.


Speaker for the Painting

The painter stood poised like a statue before the tall blank canvas before him, with one arm lightly raised and a thin paintbrush delicately held between his thumb and stained index finger. He had a look of deep contemplation upon his face, his warm brown eyes staring at in front of him but seeing only into the confines of his own mind.

To paint a wizard's portrait, one had not only to have artistic talent with the paint brush, but also the ability to capture his very soul, the essence of who he was. It was through this deep understanding by the painter, transmitted delicately and painstakingly into his work, that a portrait could come to life to interact with the world around them as the person would have when he was living.

The artist who stood thoughtfully in preparation to begin painting had received his most difficult commission yet. How was he to learn about and understand a man who had deceived the entire Wizarding World, who had lied and fooled and deflected his way through the war? A man so shrouded in mystery that there was no one still walking upon the earth who truly understood him, and perhaps there never was.

The painter was thorough. He took great pride in his artistry. By the nature of their work, painters like him were offered more access to information about people's personal lives than anyone else. In order to truly capture a person's soul in a painting, extensive research was required. Interviews were conducted, diaries read, personal effects were searched and examined. Nothing was exempt from a painter's attempts to discover the true nature of those they were required to paint.

It was tacitly understand by wizards that what a painter learned would never be revealed to anyone, no matter the circumstances. The secrets that wizarding painters' held could fill books upon books, and reporter's like Reeta Skeeter would likely sell their souls for the opportunity to pick the mind to those wizards commissioned to paint portraits. But painters had their own code and their own vows of secrecy among themselves which they adhered to with all the tenacity and constancy of the rotation of the earth and the rise of the sun in the morning.

A requirement for good painters was a deep sense of empathy. They had to learn all the details of someone's life, and then take the information they learned and analyze it, pick it apart with all the focus of a curse-breaker studying a deadly curse. They had to discover not only the what the when and the how, but also the much more difficult questions of why. Motivations and emotions were learned and integrated into the painter's mind and magic, to be transmitted onto the canvas along with paint, each thought about the subject of the painting as careful as the gentle, graceful strokes by his steady hands.

It was a lonely and solitary life that such artists led. Through the nature of their work, painters came to understand humanity in all its gritty or stunningly beautiful details, but they were never able to share their experiences with anyone, and could do naught but debate the great questions of life to the empty sky, in which the stars shared a similar dilemma of watching without revealing.

With a start, a hesitation, and them a smooth movement, the painter reached out his hand and laid his brush upon the off-white surface of the canvas. His long, thin fingers, like those of a fine women, gently and cautiously moved the paintbrush, beginning the painting. With the tangible act of painting came a pulse of magic, low and humming.

As the painter started his work he thought about all that he had learned about the mysterious, dark man who was the subject of the portrait.

He remembered the interviews he had with the students and professors of Hogwarts, the hate and resentment mingled with confusion and a tinge of respect.

He remembered a woman, hardly more than a girl, but with the wisdom and knowledge equal to those much older than her. _The professor was an enigma to everyone. One moment you would think you had him figured out, and then he would do something to make you question every premise and assumption you had made._

He remembered a young man, newly grown into his courage. _The man was terrifying. And he played his role well. No one saw past the bitter, hateful mask that he showed the world. And who knows, perhaps the mask was not a mask, but only a glimpse of a part of real man who hid underneath._

He remembered speaking to an elderly woman, ferocious like the lion that was her house's mascot, but tired and worn down by the past year's troubles. _We had an interesting relationship, in which I was never completely sure where I stood. We were maybe friends, but I rather think he would have turned me into a potion ingredient if he ever heard me say that._ A wry, regretful smile. _Of course, in that last year I felt very betrayed and immensely angry. I wish… oh how I wish I could have known, could have made amends._

The painter's strokes of the brush upon the canvas increased in their pace. The background formed slowly, dark, but not evil or menacing. There seemed to be a fog, completely impenetrable in some areas, but wispy in others, revealing a forest beneath a majestic castle.

The painter remembered a blond man, shifting uncertainly as though caught up in a tide with no sense of which direction the shore was in. _I hate him. I hate him for his deception, for his treachery. He tricked us and lied to us, to me. He was cunning, and extremely smart, with a wit like a cutting curse. I hate him… and yet… and yet I can't. Because when I try to focus on his betrayal I can't help but remember him when I first met him. He was so tall and intimidating, but instead of being scared I felt a sense of security around him, like I could hide in his flowing robes while he took care of any danger present. I can't help but think of him as the Head of Slytherin, favouring us when everyone else in the school took one look at us, children though we were, and judged us by the sins of those who came before, more often causing us to self-fulfill their predictions due to their prejudice. And I can never, ever forget that night, when he saved by soul and most likely my life._

Upon the canvas appeared a wall of grey stone. It was not a restricting wall, but rather a protective one, keeping out the dangers of the night.

The painter remembered the professor's school reports of an isolated and socially awkward teenage boy with incredibly high grades and a penchant for getting detention. Upon the painting through a window in the castle appeared walls of books, worn from use and so realistic that one could almost smell the musty aged parchment. Beneath the boughs of the trees in the forest vague outlines of shapes could be seen, resembling a stage, and wolf, and a large dog. In the centre the form of a man began to take shape. He was alone in the painting, as he had been so alone in life.

The painter remembered the stories of the implicit trust that Albus Dumbledore had had in his spy, of the repeated assurances given to the Order of the Phoenix. He also understood the control and manipulation that the great wizard had over the wayward and repentant man who had approached him during the desolate time of Voldemort's first rise.

In the top right corner of the canvas a phoenix appeared, a dash of bright colour that contrasted sharply with the rest of the portrait. The bird, however, was distant from the man in the painting. The shrouded wizard upon the canvas was free of manipulation as he had never been in life.

The painter continued steadfastly in his diligent work.

He turned his attention to focus solely on the figure that was standing in the centre of the canvas. The figure's posture was tall and proud, menacing and bat-like. His robes billowed out behind him as though caught up in the wind of an errant storm. The lines on his face made the man appear older than his actual age at the time of his death, but there was a strong set to his jaw and fierce grip of his hands on his wand that showed him to be worn down but not beaten by the troubles of his time on earth.

The man's obsidian eyes stared out from the canvas, hard and cold as they had been in his life.

Finally, the painter remembered the last, most impactful interview he had conducted. He remembered a man with untamable black hair and shining emerald eyes, whose face was known throughout the Wizarding world as a savior. _The man despised me. And I despised him. The feelings were mutual, although I didn't understand for a long time why he hated me so much in the first place. My friends and I could never determine where his loyalties lay, and despite our trust in Dumbledore we were hesitant to fully accept that he was on our side. Of course, when he… killed Dumbledore, we thought for sure we finally had him figured out. He fooled everyone._

Green eyes turned sharp with remembered hate and pain, before softening once again.

 _In the end, I learned the truth. Too late to save him. He is hailed as something of a hero now, although admittedly with some reservation. I don't think he ever saw himself as a hero, and he would probably scoff and make some sarcastic, disdainful remark about me and my celebrity status if he ever heard me calling him one. I don't think he even really wanted to be a hero. Not to the world at least, but maybe for just one person, the person who influenced so much of his life._

Eyelids fluttered shut, closing off the expressive green for a moment. Then they opened again, and upon the young, and yet old, face came an expression of contemplation.

 _Many people think of him as cold and emotionless. But I think that's not true. I think that he was a man of such extremely deep emotion that it tore him apart and made him try to hide and distance himself from the pain his own love brought upon him. But he could never diminish his love, and it drove him to amazingly brave acts._

The cold look in the painted eyes shifted and wavered. The impassive expression on the face remained, but now when one looked into the eyes there could be seen a covered warmth, like the flame of a candle at the end of a long, dark tunnel.

The painter made a few last strokes, no less important for being completed at the end of the work. Rather, they were absolutely necessary for the completion of the portrait so that it accurately reflected the character of the man depicted.

While he brushed, the painter recalled the memories he had seen in the pensieve and the aged pictures he had seen hidden among the heavily read books in a dark office in the dungeons of a girl with red hair and brilliant emerald eyes. He recalled those same green eyes in a different face glazed over with remembrance as the young man told the final, most moving parts of his professor's story.

 _After all this time?_

And upon the picture in the black-robed man's hands appeared a delicate flower, a lily, with white petals that gave off a soft luminescence and cast an almost angelic glow upon the dark man. To the man's left appeared a silver doe, poised as though to run with one of its legs bent up off of the ground and its head held high in its love for life.

 _Always._

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A/N: The inspiration for the title of this story came from Orson Scott Card's book The Speaker for the Dead.


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